Here Is Wall Street's Most Bullish Forecast For The Jobs Report

The median estimate of 92 market economists polled by Bloomberg
is that 180,000 workers were hired to nonfarm payrolls in
January.

Brian Jones, senior U.S. economist at Société Génerale, claims
the highest of those estimates — he predicts 270,000 jobs were
created last month.

Below is his take:

We expect the BLS to report
that nonfarm payrolls expanded by an above-consensus
270,000in January,
almost quadruple the preliminary 74,000 December gain and the
strongest nethiring
since the 332,000 jobs added in February 2013. Weather-related
and fundamentalfactors
support our expectation for a marked pickup in job creation last
month. Figures collected
by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) revealed that at 32.9o
degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures nationwide were 2.1o degrees
warmer than usual overthe month-to-date ended January 18 — a
fairly dramatic improvement from the mean 27.8o
degrees (5.6o
degrees below normal) suffered over the first two weeks of
December. Rather than guess at thenumber of persons who could not work
because of inclement weather in January, we decidedto explicitly incorporate the
NOAA series in our modelling procedure.

Our statistical work revealed that the 7.7o degree positive swing
in the month-to-survey-period temperature anomaly – the biggest
witnessed over the past six years – could add roughly 60,000 jobs
to the January report. Traditional labour market barometers also
suggest that December’s surprisingly low print was a fluke.
Implying a slower pace of pink-slipping, the average number of
persons filing initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits
fell by 10,000 to a three-month low of 334,000 between
establishment canvasses. Although below the 69.4 reading posted
in November, December’s three-month diffusion index of 67.7 was
well above the 50-point breakeven mark and consistent with net
hiring in the neighbourhood of 225,000. Supporting our view that
the extent of hiring is poised to rebound in the
BLS' January report, the ISM surveys revealed the strongest
hiring breadth since last August.

Over the past two years, Jones's estimates have been, on average,
14,000 above the consensus estimate and 15,000 above the actual
number, according to Bloomberg.